A 'Top-Down' Superintendent

Atlanta--When the board of education here hired J. Jerome Harris
last summer to be the city's first new superintendent in 15 years, they
recognized they had chosen a strong leader and zealous advocate for
children.

But they may not have been fully prepared for how quickly he would
move to shake up the system. As several board members and
administrators put it, "We may have gotten more than we bargained
for."

At a time when many urban districts are turning to a "bottom-up"
approach to school reform, Mr. Harris has set out to prove that
top-down leadership can spark badly needed improvements in a major city
school system.

"It doesn't sound good when you put it in the press, but I believe
in the top-down system," he said during a recent interview. "That's the
American way. The percolating-up theory is alien to our culture."

Within weeks of arriving in Atlanta, Mr. Harris launched a
school-improvement plan similar to those being proposed in several
states--with more intervention in low-performing schools and more
freedom for successful schools.

He also proposed several other new initiatives, including an attempt
to tie a 0.5 percent salary increase for school personnel to measurable
improvement in the district's standardized-test scores.

Several of the superintendent's ideas have stirred controversy, and
he has become embroiled in a public feud with the local press over
coverage of his actions.

But many of the district's employees, as well as interested
observers, applaud the hands-on leadership style that has him spending
nearly half of his working hours walking the halls of district
schools.

'Basic Management'

On a recent tour of seven schools, Mr. Harris pointed out some of
the smaller changes that have come about as a result of his first-hand
monitoring. At one school, for instance, he made note of a new wall
built to block off what had been a favorite hiding place for
students.

At another school, the parking lot is now locked at the beginning of
the school day, preventing access to outsiders and forcing students who
arrive late to park on the lawn.

"That gate was never locked before, but it is just basic
management," he said. "You only have that kind of a feeling for what's
going on when you're in the schools."

On several occasions, he stopped students in the halls and gently
reminded them that gum-chewing is permitted only in the cafeteria.

The ban on chewing gum and similar prohibitions on radios and hats
"is part of the whole discipline procedure that trains kids for the
real world," he said.

"You can't tell them it's alright to do it for 12 years in school
and when they get out they find out about the way it really is," he
said.

That Mr. Harris's reputation has won him some ardent supporters
became evident at one school when a worker came up to ask for the
superintendent's autograph, saying, "I've been hearing so much good
talk about you."

Feud With the Press

The superintendent's leadership style has also provoked a large dose
of criticism, most notably a running feud with The Atlanta Journal and
Constitution.

"The Atlanta press is racist," Mr. Harris said. "They're subtle in
their ways," the superintendent said, but in their choice of headlines
and photographs in particular, he believes, the newspapers have
conveyed the impression that black leaders have mismanaged the school
system.

The feud reached a peak in early April, when the Constitution ran
several articles on alleged mismanagement of the district's unused
property. Mr. Harris charged that the articles reflected badly on his
administration, which had inherited the problem and had been taking
steps to address it.

The Constitution printed a news story on the superintendent's
charges against the paper and, two days later, a column taking Mr.
Harris to task for building adversarial relationships.

"Dr. Harris, fresh from New York City, one of the most corrupt and
disastrous public-school systems in the nation, should understand that
Atlantans want educated children--not a cult of personality," wrote the
columnist Dick Williams.

Others in the community expressed admiration and enthusiasm for the
superintendent's stated goals, but questioned whether the reactions
provoked by his tactics would prevent him from reaching them.

"He might feel that he must come in and be very tough in order to
change the system, but he doesn't have to be so intimidating because
he's dragging folks down," said Bobbie J. Sharp, Uniserv director for
the Atlanta Association of Educators, an affiliate of the National
Education Association.

Atlanta's teachers do not have collective-bargaining rights, but
many district employees are members of either the nea or the rival
American Federation of Teachers.

Difficult Board Politics

The school board has on several occasions rejected or modified the
superintendent's proposals, saying he had not followed a proper or
thorough procedure in developing them.

In one instance last month, the board refused to hire Mr. Harris's
choice for an associate superintendent post because, several members
said, they first wanted an organizational chart that would delineate
the reponsibilities of all top administrators.

The board last month also rejected Mr. Harris's first merit-pay
proposal, which would have granted district employees a 3 percent raise
with an additional 1.5 percent increase tied to test scores.

Board members said both the merit-pay proposal and the relatively
low base-salary increase would have been harmful to teacher morale.

The superintendent shrugs off his run-ins with the board, saying, "I
will work in the ballpark they give me to play in. I'm not going to
waste a lot of time fighting and arguing with them."

Mr. Harris's experience in Community District 13 in Brooklyn did not
fully prepare him for the administrative details of running a major
urban school system, said Robert Waymer, a school-board member.

"He'd rather be out teaching," Mr. Waymer said. "Don't get me wrong,
we love him for it. We're going to spend $500,000 [on additional
administrators and other expenses] to let him be the master-master
teacher."

Mr. Harris presents a stark contrast to his predecessor, Alonzo
Crim, whose negotiating skills earned significant support, both verbal
and material, from Atlanta's business leaders, and who almost always
gained the board's approval for his agenda.

The Rev. Preston Williams, a board member, summed up a sentiment
often expressed here when he said that Mr. Harris, who was born in
Raleigh, N.C., "had been away from the way Southerners do things for
too long."

"You don't catch flies with vinegar, you catch them with honey," he
explained.

During his school visits, the superintendent tries to motivate staff
members to work harder by listening to them and giving a quick response
to requests he can fill.

'They'll Work Harder'

Several staff members noted that they either had not been visited by
previous superintendents or had simply been part of a well-planned and
orchestrated program that allowed the schools to show off their best
side.

During his first visit to the Atlanta Juvenile Treatment Center,
which houses a school for incarcerated youths run by the district,
staff members seemed genuinely pleased by Mr. Harris's personal
attention.

The school had long been ignored by district officials, the staff
said, to the point where a lack of sufficient supplies had forced them
to turn away potential students.

Mr. Harris gave the school two used typewriters that were in the
trunk of his car, and after leaving, called a district official on his
car phone to order that desks and tables be delivered within 24
hours.

"Now they know that I know where they are, and that I care," he
said. "They'll work harder, even if I can't give them everything they
need."

A more fundamental difference he has brought to the district was
reflected on the blackboard of virtually every classroom, where the
day's learning objective for each class was prominently posted.

The requirement was initiated so that both teachers and students
understand what is supposed to be taught and learned that day, he
said.

Mr. Harris says his primary responsibility is to safeguard the
interests of the district's children, which means he must "make
teachers teach what they're supposed to teach when they are supposed to
teach it. How they teach it is up to them."

School boards and administrators "have always defined what teachers
should teach," he added. "Where they have failed is they have never
monitored what is actually taught."

Thus, a major focus of his school-improvement strategy will be
testing, to ensure that the district's curriculum is rigidly adhered
to, he said.

"We will by next year have criterion-referenced tests for all
subject areas, we will periodically test all subject areas, and we will
make those results public," he said.

"If the average school scores a 15, and if any school scores a 3,"
he said, "then we will expect the principal to wonder why his school
scored a 3, we will expect the teachers to wonder why, and we will
expect the students to wonder why. That will be the driving force of
things."

The superintendent, however, clearly does not intend to count on the
self-scrutiny of principals and teachers to act as the only pressure
for improved performance.

The school board has already approved a proposal that will allow Mr.
Harris to directly take over the six schools in the district--two at
each grade level--that rank the lowest after this year's testing
cycle.

Although the details of the takeovers have not been fully worked
out, he said, the schools will probably be redesigned and a volunteer
staff will be recruited to carry out their new educational mission.

The superintendent is also asking the board to consider a one-half
percent "appreciation bonus" that would be added to an already agreed
upon 5 percent pay raise if students' test scores increase.

To counter charges that a classel10lroom-by-classroom or
school-by-school bonus system would be unfair to employees, who have
little control over the diverse backgrounds of their students, the
superintendent has proposed that the incentive increase go to nearly
all district employees based on the system's overall improvement in
test scores.

The board was expected to consider the appreciation bonus this week,
but the superintendent acknowledged that it had little chance of
approval.

"I put it out there because it simply raises the outside extreme
when it comes to conversation," he said. "I do a lot of that so that,
eventually, what I want becomes acceptable."

"People tend to do best and first those things that are in their own
self-interest," he said. "My job is to try to help them see that it's
in their best interest to help kids. Therefore, I have to tie rewards
into that."

"If I am to be successful," he added, "it will be because I will
learn how to hug and massage those people who best respond to hugging
and massaging, and will learn how to kick and stomp those people who
are most responsive to kicking and stomping."

'Don't Want To Be the Bottom'

That Atlanta is near the bottom on Georgia's ranking of districts by
standardized-test scores clearly rankles Mr. Harris. "I don't want to
be in the bottom five," he said. "That's my barometer for this
year."

But many school employees and observers worry that the
superintendent may be overemphasizing test scores to the exclusion of
other important indicators of student achievement.

"We would certainly agree that our children need to score well on
tests," said Mary Lou Romaine, president of the Atlanta Federation of
Teachers. "But when [Mr. Harris] says things like he wants to give an
appreciation bonus based on test scores, to me that trivializes what
we're trying to do."

When asked whether tests are a fair indicator of a student's
progress, Mr. Harris responded: "That's not a question that I spend any
time dealing with. They're a reality and I can't do anything about
them."

"If everybody else can do something with them," he added, "then we
can do something with them too."

School-Improvement Plan

The most novel move by Mr. Harris this year has been his
school-improvement plan. It targets intensive help to 18 of the
system's chronically lowest-performing schools, now called
"central-focus" schools, and relaxes supervision of the 25 most
successful schools, or "area-focus" schools.

The area-focus schools are known informally as "butterfly" schools,
the superintendent said, "because we've freed them up and they can fly
away and do everything they want to do."

"They're free," he added, "until they mess up and I remind them I've
got a butterfly net and I'll come get them."

A principal of one area-focus school, who asked not to be
identified, was effusive in his praise of Mr. Harris's leadership but
said he had noted "no great reduction in paperwork or any great
latitude" since being designated a butterfly school.

Many of the central-focus schools, on the other hand, have felt the
effects of their new status; they receive frequent visits from the
superintendent or his high-powered school-improvement team.

"My philosophy is that these people [in the central focus schools]
are nice, honorable, and doing the best they can do," said the
superintendent, "but it's not working for kids."

The school-improvement team "directs and trains and plans and pushes
the employees," in the central-focus schools, he said.

The principals in those schools "are no longer accountable for
results," he added. "I'm accountable. If their test scores don't go up
this year, then I can't blame them because I took away all their
authority and power."

But some question whether the central-focus schools are receiving
all the help they have been promised.

"Based on what I've heard, the superintendent promised a lot of
additional support and resources, but they did not always materialize,"
said the aft's Ms. Romaine.

The remainder of the district's 113 schools remain under the
supervision of one of three area superintendents; they, Mr. Harris
said, should be able to do a better job of oversight because they now
have fewer schools under their control.

'Gotcha Theory'?

Virtually everyone interviewed agreed that the superintendent's
unannounced visits to schools has had a major impact on classroom
practices.

"Some folks are not nearly as lax about things as they were before,
because they never know when he's going to show up," said Carolyn
Crowder, a board member.

But others question whether the visits are having a negative impact
on the morale of teachers.

"He shouldn't go into schools with the 'gotcha theory,"' said Ms.
Sharp.

"Some teachers tend to feel that he's coming in to see what's going
wrong, to catch them in one error or mistake, instead of listening to
their problems and concerns," she said.

A principal who declined to be identified added that he had heard
employees complain "that the atmosphere he has created is one of fear
and intimidation. There are people even today who use the word 'Gestapo
tactics."'

Deborah L. Battle, Atlanta's teacher of the year for 1988, said the
superintendent had "dispelled some of that by making himself available
to people to get to know him on a personal basis."

"Once people get used to his openness," she added, "they realize he
encourages people to think and be creative, and challenges them to rise
to the occasion. That's really what he's all about."

Mr. Harris argues that Atlanta has all of the ingredients for a
major push to improve the schools, including a relatively healthy
fiscal outlook and strong support from business leaders and the
community.

Because the district's enrollment has become more than 90 percent
black, it has also been spared many of the desegregation battles and
subsequent scarring found in other urban school systems.

The system's ethnic make-up has given rise to a move to infuse
examples of African-American culture and contributions to society
throughout the curriculum, an initiative that Mr. Harris, who is
president-elect of the National Alliance of Black School Educators, is
accelerating.

"There is nowhere in this country that blacks have made a
significant difference on the academic achievement of kids as the
school systems have turned from white to black," the superintendent
said.

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